


simple rules to an easy cohabitation when your housemates are whackjobs

by shortitude



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, and i will go down with it, holy shit i don't know what i was thinking, i declare this ship ship clusterfuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-12
Updated: 2012-02-12
Packaged: 2017-10-31 01:22:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/338340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shortitude/pseuds/shortitude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some time post game, Gamzee, Karkat, Dave and Terezi end up living together. It's not easy, especially when quadrant lines are blurry and everyone eventually shares the same couch. And possibly bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	simple rules to an easy cohabitation when your housemates are whackjobs

**Author's Note:**

> Don't expect a lot of plot to come with this. Or updates. Maybe one day I will write a large epic story about how these four are destined to live in peace and harmony and spilled blood and spooning and forking and lots of makeouts. Maybe one day I will regret writing this at all, because what is even happening. For now, my only excuse was: I had to do it.

Half a sweep into their new arrangement, there is a new house rule that declares that only crayons, chalk and paints are to be smeared on the walls; no blood. No-one visiting that sees the list of rules hung up on the fridge ever doubts why that one was instated. Or for whom. 

Gamzee and Terezi have never been the same after the game. They switch from pale to red to black so fast sometimes that they get dizzy themselves. Karkat freaks out and says it's not normal for trolls not to settle in one quadrant and be done with it, and Terezi shuts him up and reminds him how endearingly flush his moirailegeance smells sometimes. Nothing is normal in the household; not from the beginning. 

The four of them move in together, because Rose packs her non-existent shit one day and decides to move in with Kanaya, Jade and John and the other kids out in the wild, hunting boars and exploring the areas and forming new bonds with unknown lifeforms and whatnot. Sometimes, they host wild parties. It hits them all like a brick when everyone starts to drift apart, when shipping predictiosn get erased by the mighty hand of a non-existent god called 'fuck you, Karkat, we're not playing your games'. Sollux and Aradia get their own corner of the universe, well-deserved, and good for them. 

They don't actually move anywhere, rather they just scrub down the floors of the hive built on the meteor until all the blood is washed off them. That's when the lines start to get blurry. Terezi is scrubbing cyan off the floor on the roof and she hears Gamzee chuckle at her from somewhere on the staircase. Karkat finds them a second before Terezi can push the thick knot of the noose into Gamzee's windpipe, yanks her off him and shoves her at Dave before administrating some serious shooshpaps. She mutters about justice and retribution, trials and traitors, schemers and double-faced buttclowns into Dave's red shirt, and he has a palm over the back of her neck, calming her down. 

Dave never paps her. Of the three boys she shares living quarters with, she never pales for him. Dave plants her a tree that grows branches that snake into her room through the window, and draws inane shit on Karkat's recuperacoon just to make her laugh until she feels like crying. Karkat grows paler with her, because of Gamzee. It's like he knows that the human he's been left with won't know how to deal if the two most possibly dangerous trolls left alive would go at each other's throats one day, so at one point he alternates between giving Terezi the worst kinds of looks, full of longing and 'stop holding Strider's hand, you bitch', and patting her hand until she's let go of Gamzee's shirt. 

The worst - always, always - however, is Gamzee and Terezi. Dave starts to roll with it the moment they all move in together, because it's pretty clear what's going to happen - three bone bulges, one nook, one house; there've been worst movies dished out for adult entertainment out there with less background history in them than the one the four of them swim in. It's because before shit hit the fan between them, Terezi and Gamzee had been peachy-keen. He'd been adorable as all fuck, all high as hell and sweet and maleable. 

The trouble is, the lines have been erased between quadrants; quadrants don't have a point anymore, because the Empress is gone and it's just them now. Lost and left to survive all they can, until at last the world snuffs out like the flame of a candle, unheard and unnoticed and unimportant. It's tragic, and sad, and poets would cry ink onto paper and write raps that spanned over a hundred pages about them, except there are none left, and all Dave raps about is apple juice (because he misses it) and his old rap battles (because he misses them). 

So, the new rule. 

It's declared by Karkat after a lunch that ends with a splatter of purple blood on the wall of the kitchen, and on the floor where it drips from Terezi's fingers. It's not the first time Gamzee makes a comment or does something or looks at her in a way that has her switching from pale and okay with his existance to the deepest of hatred in a second; it won't be the last, because hatred is like a fungus, and they're already infected with it, even if at times it's not rearing its pustulent head out. But it is the last straw with Karkat, who has to pap Gamzee a full half an hour until he calms the fuck down and stops raging poetics about heresy and blasphemy at Terezi while she whacks him with her cane and tells him to stop freaking out. Dave walks into the kitchen and sees the mess, shrugs and declares that he isn't cleaning it. Five minutes and a screaming frezy later, Karkat's scribbled a memo of NO FUCKING BLOOD IN THE HOUSE YOU DIPSHITS AND THAT MEANS YOU, YOU SOCIOPATHIC HUSSY, AND YOU, YOU WHIMSICAL LITTLE SHIT. 

And that's that. 

Except. 

It's not so easy. Terezi is adamant about following rules, even if she's not content with who dictates them. Sometimes, Gamzee and she will disappear for a day, and Dave and Karkat know to get their recuperacoons ready, because they'll return home bloody and bruised. (They also know they have time to spend half a day arguing about what movie genre they're going to stream and watch, and the other half complaining about their ultimate choice. Sometimes, they just make out, when they're not busy worrying their asses off. It's tough. Their existence is difficult.)

Sometimes, they don't have time to get out of the house, and they end up defiling the tiles of the shower cabin Dave installed in his bathroom. It's decadent as all fuck, but they can scratch and make each other bleed to their heart's content without splattering the walls with the consequences of their moiratespritstude (it's three, for the price of one). 

Those occasions are often the best ones, because the hate evaporates with the steam in the bathroom, and by the time they're returning the filled pail back into a modus, Terezi murmuring 'I hate your unlawful guts' into Gamzee's collarbone, the rush has slowed down. Those occasions are often the best ones, because when they come out of the cabin and go to get dressed, Gamzee will see a scratch he left on her back and bend down to lick it clean, and Terezi will sigh and reach behind her, fingers threading with his longer ones, knees weak with the feeling of pale administrations of 'calm your tits', cheeks teal with the seeping feeling of flushed feelings, pity and hatred and the human feeling Dave keeps schooldfeeding them about that begins with L. He'll murmur a condescendingly whimsical 'oh, baby girl, oh, Terecita' into the crook of her neck, and she'll turn around and kiss the tip of his nose. Those occasions are the best ones, because they go back downstairs and hog the couch and the adorable creatures waiting for them on it, pick the movie and ignore it in favour of a popcorn battle, and pretend that everything is just fine. Just normal. Even if it's not.

But, the point is, the rule is respected.


End file.
